Twins score early, pound Tigers for 5th straight win

Ryan Jeffers and Carlos Correa hit three-run homers during the first two innings and the Minnesota Twins won their fifth straight by pounding the host Detroit Tigers 9-3 on Monday night.

Correa scored two runs and drove in four for the American League Central Division leaders. Donovan Solano had two hits and scored two runs.

Winning pitcher Pablo Lopez (7-6) scattered five hits and didn't walk a batter while recording eight strikeouts in seven innings.

The Tigers have lost nine of their last 12 games.

Nick Maton hit a three-run homer for Detroit.

Joey Wentz (2-10), making his first start since June 28, surrendered eight runs and 10 hits in three innings. The eight earned runs was the most given up by a Tigers starter this season.

Wentz tossed 4 2/3 innings of scoreless innings at Miami on July 29 but the left-hander's return to the starting rotation was disastrous.

The Twins jumped on Wentz for four first-inning runs. Solano led off with a double and scored on Correa's double. After Max Kepler reached on an infield single, Jeffers blasted his ninth homer this season.

Minnesota made it 7-0 in the second. Once again, Solano provided the spark, this time with a leadoff single. Jorge Polanco slapped an opposite-field single before Correa lofted a Wentz fastball just over the right-field wall for his 13th long ball.

The Twins tacked on another run against Wentz in the third. Willi Castro led off with a single and moved to third on Jordan Luplow's double. Michael Taylor scored Castro with a groundout.

The Tigers didn't have a runner reaching second base until Zach McKinstry hit a one-out single and advanced on a wild pitch in the fifth. Lopez set down the next two batters.

Lopez struck out the last two batters of the sixth after Riley Greene's one-out single.

Minnesota scored another run in the eighth when Alex Lange walked the bases loaded, then hit Kepler with a pitch.

Maton squelched the shutout bid in the ninth with his three-run blast over the right-field wall off left-hander Brent Headrick.